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Book Review – Serendipity – Ashok Ferrey

Serendipity by Ashok Ferrey is one of the few books, that I constantly dropped reading and picked it up again. I don’t know, what happened with this book, but I never let it go out of my sight. Something in the book was there with which I could connect with but I was not able to figure out. While reading the book, I felt like I was reading loosely connected short stories and may be that is the reason I kept dropping it and picking it up again but when I finished the book, I was satisfied with the read and thats why I am writing this review.

Piyumi, a young London barrister who is half-Tamil, half-Sinhalese. She returns to Sri Lanka after failing in her love and career to take charge of her family’s share of the inheritance, an ancestral house in Colombo’s colonial quarter, Cinnamon Gardens, called Serendipity. Marek, a Polish builder who leaves his house which is being sold off in pieces, for a new job as a teacher in Colombo and Debs the gay NGO worker. Also, there are a lot of politicians involved with their dirty political tricks. It is the 1980s and the thirty-year-old civil war in Sri Lanka has only just begun.A lot of things happen in the book, but the central question remains in the focus, will Piyumi and Marek will get together ?

Ashok Ferrey’s writing was a bit staggered for me. I don’t know why. At times I could connect with it and at times I couldn’t. I found him little clever at times with his writing. Ending was an unexpected one and left me wanting for more. I don’t know whether I should recommend this book to you or not, but if you like taking chances, give it a shot, you might like it.